


Tell Me Everything

by Isambard



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Arkham Asylum (Games), DCU
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Gen, Superheroes, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isambard/pseuds/Isambard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the man in charge of the new Arkham City facility, Professor Hugo Strange had many patients to interview. One in particular was a girl in her late teens who believed herself to be a princess from an alternate reality and had the ability to conjure the most remarkable blue flames from the palms of her hands. Batman: Arkham City/Avatar</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to either the Batman: Arkham City game or the Avatar: The Last Airbender television series.

Professor Hugo Strange pulled up the sleeve of his uniform and gazed at his watch. Its hands read a quarter past two in the afternoon. Resetting the sleeve to cover the watch he once again looked across the small table towards the door leading out of the interrogation room. His TYGER Operatives were late delivering his first interview subject of the afternoon. Perhaps they were having trouble locating her in Cobblepot’s territory, the bowery. Perhaps they had succeeded in locating her but she was proving difficult for them to subdue. Given the abilities described in the file by the late Dr. Penelope Young, he wouldn’t find it at all surprising. 

She was a highly skilled martial artist with pyrokinetic abilities who had found a means to combine the two talents to create a deadly fighting style she referred to as “fire bending.” Combining that with a keen intellect, a strong tactical mindset, and a certain mental instability that lent itself to delusions and extreme flights of fancy, the girl was a difficult subject to manage and had proven to be a potent threat for the Gotham City Police until, of course, the Batman intervened.

It was almost half past two before the door finally swung open, his cue to begin recording audio. Two guards with tazers at the ready entered first taking up positions on either side of the door while two others in the hallway outside proceeded to roughly push a young teenaged girl into the interrogation room before slamming the door shut and locking it. Strange stood to greet her, first taking stock of her appearance. The metallic gleam of the handcuffs that decorated her wrists was the only color to offset the deep red and gold of her costume (her favored colors it seemed) which she wore under a set of what appeared to be samurai armor that had been painted over to match (likely obtained from Cobblepot’s collection when she first allied herself with him). Her long dark hair was in wild disarray that nonetheless served to frame a bruised, battered, and bloodied face with a pair of the most piercing golden eyes glaring out of it. Noticing a general dampness about her and patches of white foam here and there on her person he rightly concluded that his guards had done as he ordered and doused her with flame suppressant before bringing her in.

“Miss Azula,” he greeted her with a false warmth he’d developed from decades of practice, “so good of you to join me for this little talk. Do you know who I am?”

She made no move to respond.

Undeterred, Strange continued, “I am Professor Hugo Strange, administrator of the Arkham City facility. The reason you were brought here this afternoon is your failure to appear for your first scheduled psychiatric evaluation last week. I hope you understand now what measures I will be forced to take if you prove to be uncooperative in the future.”

Again, no apparent response from the girl.

“Guard,” Strange spoke in the direction of the two at the door. “Please remove the patient’s restraints.”

Responding to the order, the guard on the left moved forward, withdrew a keychain from his pocket, and proceeded to remove the cuffs binding the girl’s wrists. All the while she remained motionless, as though she had somehow entered into a catatonic state while simply standing there. Her eyes, which never once broke contact with Strange’s own, served as the only indicators that she was at all aware of her surroundings.

With the handcuffs removed the guard returned to his station and Strange settled back into his seat at the table.

“Please, Miss Azula, take your seat,” he spoke gesturing briefly towards the chair on the opposite side of the table. “We have much to discuss, you and I.”

She continued to glare at him a moment longer, perhaps hoping that if she continued long enough she could cow him into submission. When that finally proved useless she broke eye contact for a moment, apparently to organize her thoughts, before returning her gaze to Strange and beginning to speak in that intensely sharp, subtlely accented voice that he readily recognized from Dr. Young’s recorded patient interviews.

“I am not ' _Miss Azula_.' I am _Princess_ Azula, her royal highness. It doesn’t matter to me who you are or what you do, you will address me properly.”

She famously believed herself to be royalty from an alternate reality, although whether it was the truth or merely another one of her delusions was impossible to determine. For his part, Strange chuckled softly in response while shaking his head. “I am not one of your subjects, Azula, and am under no obligation to address you in such a fashion. But, in the interests of developing amicable relations between the two of us, I will refer to you as 'Princess Azula,' if that is your wish.”

“If it is your _wish_ to have amicable relations with me then you will release me from this place so I can find a way to return to my home,” she spoke tersely with obvious agitation.

“That, I’m afraid, is something I cannot do, Princess. The only way you will ever be leaving this facility is if I am suitably convinced that you no longer pose a threat to society.”

She slammed her fists down on the table, “I’m not a threat to _your_ society,” she ground out through clenched teeth, “there’s no reason for you to hold me here.”

Strange made a show of opening the folder that contained Azula’s file and flipping through it, “I am sure that there are certain members of the Wayne Enterprises security staff, Science Department, and the GCPD who would beg to differ with you on that assessment.”

“They were in my way. They got what they deserved.”

“Did they? During your attack on the Wayne Enterprises Science Department you held a young women hostage, Dr. Helen McCarthy was her name. She was one of Dr. Howard’s assistants for his dimensional tunneling research. It says here in the coroner’s report,” he withdrew the document from the folder, “that before she died she suffered a combination of first, second, and third degree burns across the entirety of her body, each of them in the distinct shape of a handprint. Dr. Howard testified that you were torturing her in an attempt to force him to help you return to the place you claim is your home dimension. Tell me, Princess,” he spoke softly, gazing at her through his the thick lenses of his glasses, “was Dr. McCarthy standing in your way? Did she get what she deserved?”

If she could set Hugo Strange on fire with her gaze alone, he did not doubt that she would have done it. “What is it you want from me, Strange? Why am I here?”

“I simply wish to better understand you. To hear your story in your own words. To learn what forces made you the person you are today, especially at such a young age. Won’t you talk to me?”

Azula shook her head, “No. I already went through this with that Young woman. She recorded our interviews, listen to those or, better yet, interrogate her if you’re so interested.”

“Unfortunately,” Strange began as he removed his glasses and began cleaning them with a small piece of cloth, “Dr. Penelope Young is no longer with us. The Joker killed her during his takeover of Arkham Island last year. I believe that you were there that night, incarcerated in the intensive treatment ward. I confess I am curious to know, why you did not join with the Joker at that time. I’m sure in the chaos you could have easily found the opportunity to take your revenge on the Batman for the way he humiliated you.”

“I stayed in my cell that night for two reasons, the first being that Joker tends to be as much of a threat to his allies as he is to his enemies.”

“An impeccable observation,” Strange said, setting his glasses back in place. “And the second reason?”

“When I kill the Bat, when he is slowly being consumed by blue flames, screaming as his skin melts off of him, I want him to know not just that he’s dieing at my hands but that it was happening purely for the sake of my own revenge, no one else’s. Not as just a part of that clown’s schemes.”

“Hmmm, interesting,” Strange muttered softly to himself. “We’ll return to the subject of the Batman another time, perhaps. You have asked me why you should tell me your story when you have already told it to Dr. Young on a previous occasion. For myself, I wish to satisfy my own curiosity about your case and follow my own line of questioning that differs from Dr. Young’s in many respects. I also hope to produce a more satisfactory audio record of you as an interview subject as your mastery of the English language has improved significantly over these years.”

“None of this is motivating me to cooperate with you. You can have your thugs beat me all you like. I have no reason to help you.”

“Don’t you? Tell me, how goes your quest to find a way to return to your home dimension? Not very well I expect.”

She grimaced, as he’d clearly hit a sore spot. “These things take time, Strange. I’m sure a man in your profession can understand that.”

“I can see to it that it takes far less time if you cooperate with me. Please, Princess Azula, sit and tell me your side of the story. I promise you, after today, each time you come to see me at the appointed time I will provide you with a vital piece of information for your research. My contacts can supply me with all the research documents related to the dimensional tunneling project that is currently underway at S.T.A.R. Labs in Metropolis. You want to go back to your home, yes? And take your revenge on all those who betrayed and ruined you? I can help you to make it possible.”

This finally tore the, until then, ever present scowl off from her face. She suddenly seemed disoriented, unsure of what to do anymore, this new information suddenly made her precious defiance seem significantly less valuable than it had been.

Professor Hugo Strange watched her make her decision, a small smile curling his lips ever so slightly as Princess Azula reached out a pale hand, pulled her chair out from under the table, and sat down.

“What do you want to know?” she asked, meeting his gaze once more.

“Please,” Strange replied as he leaned forward against the table, steepling his fingers as he did so, “tell me _everything_.”


	2. Tell Me Everything - Chapter 2

"Tell Me Everything" Chapter 2 - Isambard

Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to either the Batman: Arkham City game or the Avatar: The Last Airbender television series.

Azula had been briefly taken aback by Hugo Strange’s proposal. All these years of struggle, trapped in this foreign world, and all she had to show for it were the barest of results. Her ultimate goal of finding the means to create a physical door back to her home had thus far remained so out of reach that she’d occasionally fallen prey to moments of such utter despair that it made that period of time she’d spent in the asylum her brother had locked her away in seem like some distant, pleasant dream by comparison.

But now, this man was offering her a chance to make _progress_ , actual _progress_ towards seeing her dream realized. Of course, simply having the information she required wouldn’t provide immediate results, but it would at last give her a path to follow, a path back to her much-abused and ill-governed homeland. Idly, she wondered just how Fire Lord Zuzu was faring during her long absence. Was he now so blithely content with his place in the universe that he dared to think he’d seen the last of his sister; never guessing that she hadn’t stopped thinking of him, hadn’t stopped _planning_? Or had he been reduced to a paranoid wreck always looking over his shoulder and casting light into the dark corners of their father’s house, fearing she could leap out and attack him at any moment lest he drop his guard? Either possibility, she found, had its appealing qualities.

But no, it wouldn’t do to get ahead of herself at this early stage. She still had to contend with the realities of this world before she could even hope to turn her attention to the realities of her own. Hugo Strange’s offer was, while a major boon to her goals, not without its share of risks. She’d never been very free when it came to giving out information. Indeed, her brother had often claimed that she “always lied” and, while she publicly scoffed at the notion, she acknowledged privately that there was some truth to it. She guarded herself from harm, both at home and abroad, with many shields and her ability to control the availability of information about herself was one of her most valuable. Before, with Dr. Young, she’d had the luxury of being able to play the role of the language-deficient foreigner to sabotage the interview. At this stage that was no longer an option. She had to tread carefully, especially with this man.

“You want me to tell you _everything_?” she began, her voice dripping with well-practiced condescension. “Your terms are a little broad, Strange. Where exactly would you like me to begin?”

She watched him levelly from across the table, but could not catch a glimpse of his eyes from behind those damned spectacles to get a sense of his disposition. All she could see was her own reflection glaring back at her: her face a mess of bruises, her lipstick smeared and ruined leaving an ugly reddish stain across the lower half of her face. Those TYGER fools would pay _dearly_ for this indignity.

“You may begin wherever you like, Princess,” the Professor’s deep baritone prevented her from contemplating her vanity any further. “If there is no immediate topic you’d like to discuss at this stage, might I recommend you start by telling me about your family?”

“My family?”

She had to tread _carefully_ , especially with _him_.

“My family…my family is the first in the nation, some would say that we are the first in all of the world. Our dynasty has ruled the home islands of the Fire Nation for centuries dating as far back as the founding itself. It was my great grandfather, Fire Lord Sozin, who had the clarity of vision and the strength of will to gaze out across the entirety of the Earth and dream that it would all be ours.”

“Your great grandfather started a war, then,” it was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, the final war. The war to end all wars.”

“How long did it last?”

“Well, Sozin inaugurated a new calendar with the start of the war, the Imperial Calendar he called it. I was born in Imperial Year 85 and the war was still being fought then. It was the obligation of each new generation to work towards ending the war and bringing about a lasting peace. My great grandfather started it, my grandfather Azulon continued it, and my father, Fire Lord Ozai, sought to bring about the war’s final conclusion in Imperial Year 100.”

A brief lull came in the conversation as Strange quietly hummed to himself while jotting down a few notes on a small pad of paper she hadn’t noticed before. 

“While this historical account you are providing me with is proving interesting,” he began, “it is unfortunately a little too academic for our purposes here. From here on, Princess, I’d appreciate it if you would kindly restrict your account to members of your immediate family.”

Azula clenched her teeth at that. It would have been so easy to talk for hours on end about her nation’s history and the role her family had in shaping it. It would have been so easy to fulfill her obligations to this man without actually having to tell him anything of worth. Had he even found anything about what she said “interesting?” Did he, like so many other psychiatrists she’d been forced to spend time with, believe it all to be the product of a deluded mind? Or did he see it for the ploy it was and attempt to force her back on track? She made quick work of collecting herself before continuing.

“As I was telling you before your interruption,” she sneered, “my father was Fire Lord Ozai, the nation’s most recent _legitimate_ ruler. My mother was the Lady Ursa. The last member of my _immediate_ family was my elder brother Zuzu,” she hesitated, forgetting herself, “Zuko.”

“Your elder brother,” Strange began without looking up from his notepad, “was his name ‘Zuzu’ or ‘Zuko?’”

“His full name was Zuko.”

“Then ‘Zuzu’ is a nickname, yes?”

She nodded, not liking where this was going in the least. Why did she have to call her brother “Zuzu” at that moment? Couldn’t she have at least feigned respect for him just once to at least conceal her actual views?

“Was this nickname a mark of endearment or of mockery?”

“I thought you were the expert on psychology, Strange,” Azula struck back, “what do you think?”

“What I think is irrelevant at this early stage, Princess Azula. Your thoughts and perceptions are the immediate topics for discussion here. I feel I should warn you that persistent unresponsive behavior of this nature will be considered a violation of the terms of our agreement. You must play by my rules, Princess, if you want to gain anything from our meetings together.”

All right, why not, she thought to herself. It wasn’t as though her brother had a reputation here. It wasn’t as though Hugo Strange had any other source of information about Zuko to call her account into question.

She took a deep breath, “My brother…was always so ridiculous. Since before I was born, he’d long ago ruined the keenness of his intellect by indulging in syrupy sentimentality. I confess, there were times when I actually found myself pitying him, as I would a village idiot.” 

She watched him in silence as he continued writing on his notepad, recording anything she said that he felt was significant with the intent, no doubt, of using it all so construct some absurd psychological profile of her. How she _hated_ him.

“So, _yes_ ,” she spat out, “whenever I called him Zuzu, I was mocking him. I hope you’ve taken proper notes to that effect.”

“Yes,” Hugo Strange smiled in a manner she could only interpret as condescending, “I have.” He then proceeded to close up his notepad and slide his pen back into the pocked of his lab-coat. “Tell me, do you have any ideas as to where this difference in temperaments between you and your elder sibling came from?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why was he the weaker and you the stronger? I trust you both grew up in the same environment and interacted with the same people on a daily basis. Why were you so remarkably different from each other?”

Azula thought for a moment before answering.

“I suppose mother’s influence would have to be the cause you’re looking for. She had her claws firmly planted in Zuko for as far back as I can remember.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. She ruined him, you see. She was the one who drowned his mind in petty emotionalism and sentimentality. She was always coddling him, always comforting, always praising him even though he was lesser of the two of us in all the ways that mattered. His firebending was mediocre at best and his studies, his knowledge of military history, weren’t any better. Yet, still, she always encouraged him despite the fact that he only rarely showed any signs of improvement. You must have some knowledge of these things. Do you think that that is any way to raise a child?”

“Did your mother love you?”

Azula could only gaze back at Strange in absolute shock, the color draining from her face, at the sudden change of subject, at the sheer brazenness of what she’d been asked. What madness could have possessed him to ask her such a question? What, in anything she’d said could have derailed his train of thought into this foolishness about her mother?

“What could you _possibly_ mean by asking me such a _question_ ,” she gasped, utterly scandalized.

Strange held up his hands placatingly, “Forgive me, Princess. I merely misspoke. It was foolish of me to think you could answer such a question. You are not, after all, your mother and can’t be reasonably expected to testify to what her thoughts and feelings were.”

“If mistakes like that are going to be a common occurrence I’d advise you to think very carefully before you ask your next question, Strange,” she spoke in a low, threatening tone of voice.

“Yes, Princess, you are correct,” Strange said brushing a gloved hand backwards over his baldhead in apparent embarrassment. “Allow me to rephrase. Do you _believe_ that your mother loved you?”

Azula’s glare was deadly. “That question isn’t much better than the last.”

“But it is one that you are more than capable of answering based on your own viewpoint. Really, all it requires is a simple yes-or-no, Princess. I can’t imagine what you find so objectionable about it.”

“I don’t believe in love.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. Neither did my father.”

“Then what do you believe in?”

“I believe,” she paused for a moment, gazing downwards thoughtfully. “I believe in the power of the will. I believe in the power of the mind to completely dominate other human beings.”

“A piece of your father’s philosophy, I expect? And did this belief of yours in the power of ‘the will’ come to influence all of you relationships?”

“And if it did? What would you attempt to extrapolate from that?” Azula sneered. She’d had enough. This was going too far.

He leaned forward, smiling that damned smile.

“What do you think, _Princess Azula_?”

She had to seize control of this interview. This was her only chance.

“You want to know what I think, _Professor Hugo Strange_? I think that this whole situation feels very familiar. Oh I admit that some of the details are different and the main characters, yourself included, are being played by different actors, but this ‘Arkham City’ business feels like a story I’ve worked my way though once before.”

“What do you mean?” Azula was surprised and satisfied to hear what sounded like genuine curiosity coloring his tone.

“Five years ago, when I was fighting in the war, my compatriots and I infiltrated a massive walled city-state that belonged to our enemies,” she began to smile as she spoke, seemingly remembering better times. “No one in the Fire Nation could say for certain what the circumstances inside the city were because none of us had ever been there. Only my uncle had managed to come close to finding out several years earlier during a failed 600 day long offensive. What we found when we entered the city was a very unusual situation. You see, the king of the city that for so long had eluded our grasp turned out to be an easily manipulated feckless weakling who couldn’t wield power effectively if someone gave it to him with an instruction manual. Does that sound like anyone you know, Strange?”

“Perhaps,” he responded thoughtfully. “Please, continue.”

“While in theory the king was the one in charge of governing the city, in practice all the authority and power fell to his closest advisor and lieutenant, the Grand Secretariat. Using his secret police force, this man worked to suppress dissidents, imprisoned criminals and political enemies, spread propaganda, and worked to enforce order so he could create some ideal, perfect society as though such a thing were actually possible. Are you drawing any parallels yet, _Professor_?”

“I might be,” Strange answered simply. “But you seem to be the expert on this subject so I will yield to your greater store of knowledge.”

“Alright, if you’re too dense to figure it out for yourself, I’ll explain. Just like that king could in no way hope to govern a city, there is no way that Quincy Sharp is actually in charge of Gotham. He may have won that election to the mayor’s office but he can’t possibly be the one in charge. I remember that simpering fool from when he was the warden at Arkham Asylum and he could barely keep that facility afloat let alone an entire city. I’ll admit that for a time I thought I might have misjudged him until, out of nowhere, he appointed you and your TYGER Security Company to run the Arkham City prison. You’ve papered the city streets with a wealth of propaganda in support of this place and even now your TYGER operatives have begun to take over the work of the regular police force in rounding up criminals, many who have simply made the mistake of speaking out against _you_. So, in summation, Mayor Sharp isn’t the real power in Gotham. _You_ are.” 

“That is an interesting hypothesis you have developed, Princess,” Hugo Strange replied in a jovial tone of voice that stood in sharp contrast to the tense atmosphere Azula was attempting to create. “Please, allow me to lay some of your concerns to rest. Mayor Sharp and I have been close associates and personal friends for quite some time. Although you and I never had the opportunity to meet before this point, Arkham Asylum was my place of employment during the Mayor’s tenure as warden. When he won his election and the time came to build Arkham City, Quincy couldn’t very well serve as both mayor and administrator of the new prison as the same time and so he turned to me for help. These types of arrangements happen all the time, you see, without the benefit of grand conspiracies.”

“You’ll forgive me if happen to find all that to be very convenient.”

“Reality often is, Princess Azula. However, for the sake of argument, I will humor you on this point. This ‘Grand Secretariat-“

“His name was Long Feng.”

“Long Feng, yes. During that time when you infiltrated his city, what did you do with him?”

Azula folded her hands on the table in front of her and smiled slightly, “I simply restored that upstart to his proper niche. He thought he knew my mind and, under that mistaken assumption, attempted to work against me. It ended badly.”

“Did it really?”

“Yes. With the city under my complete control he had no choice but to kneel before my throne broken and defeated.”

The silence that followed Azula’s brief account of the fate of the unfortunate Long Feng was deafening to all present. The Princess never once took her eyes off of Strange, never once removed her piercing gaze his spectacle-shielded eyes. She might not be able to look him in the eye, but he most certainly could look into her own. It was only a matter of time until the pressure mounted…

And then he smiled that awful smile again and chuckled softly, “I feel I should thank you, Princess. You’ve given me a great deal to think about during this first interview session and I feel it is only fair that I should do the same for you in return. Tell me, how would you describe the circumstances that lead up to the loss of you throne?”

Azula shuddered involuntarily at the subject but was quick to regain her composure. She couldn’t afford to show weakness now of all times.

“Why would you want to know about that,” she responded tightly.

“Please, Princess, humor me on this one point and then this interview will be over.”

“It was,” she swallowed, “it was a seemingly endless parade of betrayals and deceptions.”

“First your friends turned against you.”

“Yes, for no reason they attacked me.”

“Then, according to the rather garbled account you supplied to Dr. Young, your domestic servants, your various agents and palace guards all started turning against you en masse.”

“ _Yes_. They did that. What _point_ are you trying to make with all this?” Azula exclaimed in obvious agitation. 

“The point, _Miss Azula_ , is quite simple, really. You have a decided tendency to blame every misfortune you suffered during this period of your life, whether they are guilty or not, on outside forces: the friends and servants who betrayed you, your brother for stealing your throne, that messiah figure who defeated and ruined your father. Having studied your case and spoken to you personally, I’m beginning to think that the truth is far simpler than you want to believe.”

“ _And what truth is that_?” Azula ground out through clenched teeth.

“The truth that despite all of your rants against the world, against your enemies, and against all those who had once stood beside you, the only person you should ever have to blame for your downfall is _yourself_.”

For the longest time Azula could not say a thing, so stunned was she by what she had just been told all she could do was stare at Hugo Strange in wide-eyed amazement. She liked to think she had mastered the English language by this point but it was not outside the realm of possibility that she had misheard him. This man could not have actually said _that_ to her, could he? 

Azula’s doubt and incredulity were short-lived, however, and her anger was quick to consume all of her conscious thought.

“How _dare_ you,” she seethed. “How _dare_ you even suggest such a thing?”

“Please calm yourself, Azula.”

She ignored him, pounded her fists on the table and abruptly stood up sending her chair over clattering over backwards in the process. She across the table glared at Strange, golden eyes filled with hate.

“What do you _mean_ that it was my _fault_ ,” she yelled, gesticulating wildly, her voice gaining volume with each word spoken, spittle flying. “I was betrayed you _scoundrel_! On all sides I was surrounded by traitors and mutineers and you have the _insolence_ to suggest that it was my fault that they betrayed me!? Do you honestly think that if I’d been nicer to them then they would have remained loyal to me in the end!? I am Princess Azula, daughter of Fire Lord Ozai and heir to his throne! I don’t earn the loyalty of my subjects! Their loyalty is _already mine_ by _right_ and by _birth_!” she slammed her fist down on the table, punctuating each word.

“Miss Azula,” Strange interrupted her rant, speaking evenly, “please _control_ yourself.”

“For the _last time_ I am not Miss Azula! I am Princess Azula, a member of royalty and if you don’t learn to show me the proper respect right now I will _teach_ it to you myself!”

Anger clouded her judgment. If it hadn’t she might have thought her actions through more clearly as, in spite of the extinguishing chemicals she’d been doused with before, a small but nonetheless potent blue flame sputtered to life in the palm of her right hand. If she had instead used her left hand she might have actually had a chance to attack Strange. As it was, her right arm no longer possessed the strength to move as quickly as it had to under these circumstances. It was her first mistake. Her second was to forget that she and Hugo Strange weren’t the only people in that interrogation room.

The first blow came to the back of her skull, disorienting her and knocking her forward across the table. That small blue flame vanished from her grasp. She was only vaguely aware of the taser being pressed to the back of her neck before her body began to convulse with agony. Whatever slim purchase she had on the tabletop failed her as she collapsed backwards onto the floor and still the TYGER guard continued to shock her again and again. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think, she could barely see anything at all.

When it was over she was sprawled out on the interrogation room floor, gasping for breath, unable to move. Azula was vaguely aware of Strange ordering the guards to restrain her and felt that she was being rolled over onto her front. The distinctive sensation of a boot pressing down on her back made it all the more difficult to breathe as her arms were wrenched backwards and her wrists bound together.

“Get her up,” Hugo Strange ordered.

She felt herself being dragged upwards although she wasn’t yet capable of standing again. Her eyes were focused on the floor, as she was still too weak to even lift her head. It was then that she felt a strong, gloved hand take hold of her chin and lift her head upwards until she was once again looking into the bespectacled face of Professor Strange.

“I apologize for having provoked you, Princess Azula,” he spoke softly. “I did not expect that your reaction would be so violent. You may disregard everything I said, I was simply thinking out loud at the time. If you do not wish to return for out interview session next week, I will not stop you. Simply life out your life as you have been until now, follow the rules of the facility and you need never have to deal with a TYGER operative or myself ever again.”

However, I will admit that despite the various difficulties you have presented, once we began talking you proved to be most cooperative,” he continued, releasing her face and walking out of her field of vision. When he returned he held out to her a large manila envelope sealed with the logo for S.T.A.R. Labs. “Here it is, the first research document related to the dimensional tunneling project. Consider it an advance on my payment for these interview sessions. If you do decide to return next week there will be another one like it waiting for you.”

Guard,” he addressed the one on Azula’s right. “Take her out into the hall and strap her to one of the chairs so she can have some time to recover before reinsertion. Once she is able to move on her own again give this to her,” he finished handing the envelope over to the guard.

With that the guards turned her away from the professor and began dragging her back out of the interrogation room, the door opening from the outside to let them pass.

“Oh, and one more thing, Azula,” she heard him call after her. “If you do choose to appear next week please do remember that ‘punctuality is the politeness of kings,’ or _princesses_ as the case may be.”

And with that she heard the door seal shut behind her.

 

“Is she fully restrained,” one guard spoke up.

“This is about as tight as they’re going to get,” the one at her side said before he gave the last strap one final tug for good measure before locking it in place. They’d removed her handcuffs for convenience before placing her in one of the waiting chairs out in the hallway of the interrogation center. It was admittedly more comfortable than having her hands bound behind her back but all of her limbs were nonetheless immobilized.

“Alright that’s good enough,” he turned to the third guard present, “douse her.”

With that he approached her with a metal canister and proceeded to use an attached hose to spray her from head to toe with a sort of flame suppressant whose name escaped her. The feel of it chilled Azula to her bones. She did her absolute best to bear it stoically.

“Won’t be lighting any fires like this, _Princess_ ,” from their mouths her precious title came as a taunt. She had a hard time believing that even the Avatar himself would begrudge her hatred of these men.

“ _TYGER 72…I repeat TYGER 72_ ,” one of the guard’s radios sparked to life, “ _this is the West Entrance. Prisoner 0328 is here waiting to be escorted to the Interrogation Center. Requesting additional assistance with transportation of prisoner_.”

The first guard, TYGER 72, took up his radio: “This is TYGER 72. Understood West Entrance. An escort is on its way. TYGER 72 out.”

“Are you sure we can just leave her here,” another of the guards asked.

“Prisoner 0328 is a level five threat. He requires all the armed escorts we can provide. Besides, Azula here isn’t going anywhere, are you _Princess_ ,” 72 sneered.

Azula glared back, unmoved.

72 smirked in response, “douse her again just to be safe.”

With that she was forced to endure another coating of flame suppressant that seemed to go on for minutes and left her teeth chattering from the cold before they left.

Azula watched them leave down the corridor towards the west end of the facility for as long as she could, her gaze catching on their firearms as they went, causing a phantom pain to flare up in her right shoulder.

For the longest time since arriving in Gotham she had been completely ignorant of guns. The smattering of English she’d managed to master before her ill-fated attack on Wayne Enterprises hadn’t prepared her for the muzzle flash of an overweight security guard’s pistol or the searing pain of a gunshot wound.

That was what she’d forgotten in her anger moments ago. They’d managed to remove the bullet after she’d been arrested but by then the damage had already been done. She wasn’t disabled by any means, but she’d never again have the same amount of strength or speed in her right arm.

At times she liked to think that that wound was the only reason the Batman had managed to defeat her back then. But that line of thinking was far too seductive for her to believe. She would never accept that kind of excuse for failure. Her father would never accept that excuse, and she wouldn’t either.

Her transfer to Arkham City (a prison where the inmates are essentially left to their own devices) had given her a great deal more liberty than she’d ever experienced at the asylum. Taking advantage of that fact, Azula decided to attempt a study of firearms to learn as much as she could about them and find any potential weaknesses she could exploit. She found the weapons rather fascinating. It was such an elegant concept, really to use combustion as a means to launch a projectile at incredible velocities. At times Azula contented herself to think that it was the sort of weapon that only a world without bending could come up with while still, nonetheless, finding it vaguely humiliating that her own homeland hadn’t come up with something similar centuries ago.

Azula had spent some time experimenting with Cobblepot’s stockpile of arms and ammunition in the hope of finding some style of firebending that she could use to shield herself from gunfire. Thus far her efforts had failed to produce any results leaving her ability to quickly dodge attacks as her greatest and only asset in a gunfight. She’d come to believe that the only immediate answer lay in metalbending, the mythical art that the Avatar’s earthbender companion had somehow managed to master…or so Azula had heard. If it were true, perhaps it would be possible for the girl to stop speeding bullets in midair. Azula would look forward to the opportunity to test her thesis in person.

“Hey, could any of you fellas maybe loosen one of these straps just a tiny bit. It’s getting a little tight in some tender places if ya’ know what I mean.”

That _voice_!

Azula looked back down the corridor in sudden alarm. In the distance she could easily make out the distinctive colors: the purple suit, the chalk-white skin, the garish green hair. She could faintly make out the same TYGER guards from earlier wheeling him towards her strapped in a standing position to an elevated gurney.

 _Prisoner 0328, a level 5 threat. Why did it have to be_ him? _Why couldn’t it have been any other prisoner in this madhouse but_ HIM?

Azula shut her eyes tightly and leaned her head back against her chair, hoping he wouldn’t take notice of her as the squeaking of the wheels drew closer and closer.

Whatever luck she had, it would seem, had long since run out.

“Well, well, well,” the Joker crowed, “if it isn’t ‘Smokey the Babe.’ How ya’ doin’ toots? Set any hearts _aflame_ lately?”


End file.
